


Make It Right

by chii



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-27
Updated: 2012-03-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 14:09:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/369843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chii/pseuds/chii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[ Director Church/Allison, backstory/headcanon. ] Allison doesn’t come home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make It Right

**Author's Note:**

> i not so secretly have a thing for church/allison, um.

Leonard fancies himself a scientist, and he has the degrees to prove it, and now he has the girl, which really just tickles him pink, honestly, because of how funny it is, high school sweethearts like this. He had always kind of assumed that such things were beyond him-- hell, beyond _her_ when it came down to it, because Allison had always talked about other things.

But domesticity, he thinks, suits them, all the way up until the war.

Until she starts mentioning it, the things she needs to do, and he has to understand, damnit, they’re not kids anymore.

He’s brilliant and he could do something, and she-- well. She’s never been book-smart, but she can do this. Leonard thinks he could try-- he loves humanity and the UNSC, he seeks to better it every day, but maybe she’s right. Maybe picking up a rifle will help more, when all they hear about is the fact that people keep dying.

The only issue is, he doesn’t think he would be accepted, and he knows that. But she’s insistent, saying _this is what I need to do_.

( Except, what if she -- )

Leonard refuses to talk to her for the first day she suggests it-- suggests _leaving him behind_ , and she goes out the whole night just to spite him, leaving him sitting on the couch and pressing his face to his hands, because _no, no_ , he can do this, she’s going to get herself _killed_ if she’s not careful, doesn’t she _see?_ At the very least, he could be there to help her, to make sure everything goes right.

Allison’s always had him by the balls, though, always known what it takes to wear him down and this urge to keep telling her _no no no_ takes so very little time to fade, before he lets it go- some battles you just fight later.

It takes only a few days before he’s the one coming up to her, curling arms around her waist, pressing lips against the nape of her neck, quiet and resigned, asking _when_. He’s not so foolish as to think that she hadn’t signed up to go; no, Allison doesn’t ask for permission, and she’s told him that many, many times.

The worst of it is the fact that he’d visited the offices when she had mentioned going in. The UNSC can’t use him as a soldier, no matter how much he considers the idea. He’s a waste on the battlefield, but they’ve seen his work, his theories, and he gets offered an office, instead.

( “It’s a _desk job_ ,” Leonard says a little uncertainly, just kind of shrugging when she brings up the question to him, not missing the eyebrow she cocks at him.

“It’s something. It’s being useful. It’s _helping_ ,” Allison says easily, like it’s the most common-sense thing to say in the world.

Leonard knows he can’t explain why-- he _would_ give his life if it came down to it, but no, he doesn’t want her to have to give hers. )

It stings something fierce, settling everything at his desk one morning, and coming home to see her adjusting her uniform, giving him the most brilliant smile possible.

“You-- cut your hair,” Leonard observes quietly, and reaches out, brushing the ends of the short strands, smiling a little crookedly, more-so when she scoffs at his tone. She always does that, laughs at him like he’s being ridiculous, when he doesn’t think he is.

“I don’t look like a teenager anymore.” Allison, turns in a quick circle, and drags him in for a quick, hard kiss. “Makes me look older. People will take me seriously.”

He can’t help the brief smile at that, resting his forehead against hers, fingering the edges of her bright red hair, a laugh lingering in his tone. “Yes, of course, it won’t be the vise-grip you keep you keep on those around you or your intimidating attitude, but your _haircut,_ ” he murmurs in a mockingly grave tone, teasing clearly, and then stops a moment, realizing that was worded horribly. “--not that it doesn’t look _good,_ I mean.”

Allison knows him better than anyone else-- for better or for worse sometimes, honestly. “Uh-huh, nice save,” she drawls, and elbows him, leaving them both snickering at each other, even when he feels his breath catch when he sees her in uniform.

 

They don’t get stationed together, and bootcamp and the like lasts too short for his liking. Too soon, she’s got a letter that says active deployment and Leonard just stares at it sitting on the dinner table, head in his hands.

“Be fucking happy for me,” Allison snarls, and shoves him into their bedroom wall, voice low and tight and angry, and Leonard just stares, not understanding why she doesn’t understand why he’s scared.

“Do you understand what you’re doing, Allie? It’s been getting worse--” _And I’m not there for it, I can protect you, damnit, I can_ \-- “Entire groups go missing. They’re-- Insurrectionists, Allison!”

He spends the night out on the couch again, not because she won’t let him sleep in the bed, but because he’s too frustrated to even look at her right now, to feel the dogtags she takes to wearing all the time. He’d be more proud of her if he didn’t want to strangle her half the time himself, because she was so goddamn frustrating.

( “-unless it’s because you’re fucking _jealous_ ,” Allison snarls, and they both know the moment she’s gone too far, Leonard biting his tongue before he says something he’ll regret, and Allison refusing to back down, refusing to apologize. )

 

Potential hot-zones he can handle; he knows Allison can handle them and he is able to move here and there in order to keep with her when she moves due to duty, keeping on bases here and there, able to do his research wherever so long as he puts in the requests within enough time. They don’t really have what he thought they would-- a house, or anything solid, but-- well, that’s what the ring in his pocket is for, later. They’re both successful, and they’re both helping humanity in their own ways.

Leonard’s old enough to realize that now.

She loves humanity just as much as he does, and while he can’t help her at her side-- not that she needs help, of course, but he can do it another way. He gets called brilliant time and time again and submits his research to different panels who forward it along different channels as well, hearing whispers of things that are far, far above his clearance.

He saves his paychecks, saves and saves and saves and takes a private leave for a while to go find the perfect ring, settling on one-- simple silver, not too flashy, not too gaudy, she’d never liked gold much, not really. Allison’s going to be back in two days, and he takes care the night of to make dinner, to wait, because she’ll be home, she’ll be home soon, and the last time he’d seen her they’d argued, but things will work out.

 

Allison doesn’t come home.

She’s still mad, probably. Leonard can’t blame her, not really-- they argued a lot, sometimes, over the most ridiculous goddamn things-- her dogtags, why the hell does she have to wear them in bed?

She’s probably still pissed about that, and Leonard orders pizza instead, sulking on his couch ( though he’ll never call it sulking, because he doesn’t sulk. He’s far too dignified for that. )

Allison doesn’t come home the next day either, and his leave is over-- the plan to spend the night doing other things after proposing to her is a miss, and he goes back into work, lips quirking up faintly as one of the tech leads on the floor clasps his shoulder with a quiet sorry.

Of course. It’d probably been obvious what he was planning with proposing, and seeing him like this was probably a large indicator that things hadn’t gone well, to say the least. Leonard sits at his desk and starts shifting through the paperwork, only to feel a hand on his shoulder, squeezing.

“If you need time off--”

He glances up, laughing faintly. “I-- no, sir. No.” Honestly, it’s a little flattering and a little insulting, maybe, that they’re all this concerned about him. They’ve met Allison-- or heard about her temper. Rumors spread like wildfire indoors. Her standing him up is a bit of a slap to the face, but it’s not the end of the world. “She’ll likely be home soon-- arguments don’t last.”

The look on his commander’s face gives it away instantly, and Leonard drops the paperwork he’s holding just like that, just staring. “--sir.”

“...I thought you knew,” he says carefully, slowly, and Leonard’s stomach tightens, a steady mantra of no no no no threatening to bubble up past his lips. “Her whole group went down. Insurrectionist hideout is what we thought-- they went ahead in. Lost the whole company. They’re still working out _what-_ or who, it was.”

Leonard is silent, pale as he listens, realizing he can’t recall the last few words they said to each other, only knowing they were sharp and angry and he’d been the one to refuse coming to bed, telling her she could sleep with her goddamn dogtags if she wanted to, but he would be on the couch, thank you very much.

“...I’m sorry,” the older man murmurs finally, and closes the office door, as Leonard mechanically picks through his paperwork, hands shaking so badly he has to leave it, and puts his head down on the desk. He doesn’t cry-- not right now, not yet, because Allison could-- she could walk in the door, tell him he’s being a little bitch about things, that he can’t cry about something like this.

 

The world does so like to mock him sometimes, he thinks, fingering the cold metal tags in his hands as he sits there afterward, the only pieces left of her after they dig the site out. They’re scorched and worse for wear, but they’re all that’s left, and that’s the worst goddamn part-- he hates her fucking dogtags.

Someone in her company had mentioned she’d had a letter for him-- they didn’t know what was in it, didn’t know what it said, but it was important from the way she kept it under all her armor and everything else, saying it was something she had to keep safe.

The apologies are the worst; he can only take them for so long before he has to leave the funeral and sit outside, head in his hands, dogtags cold in one, the ring still in his pocket, a weight he can’t bear to get rid of right now.

 

Church throws himself fully into his work after that. She’d been in this to save humanity just as he had, and the stakes were even higher with the Great War. Church wouldn’t just let her die in vain, he refused.

She deserved better than that. He would do one better than just following what she wanted, though. The UNSC didn’t understand what he was trying to accomplish-- Church could recreate what was lost in war. An AI and a working program to win the war were only the start -- if his research was right, he could do more. So, so much more, and he would fix things.

He’d make them right.


End file.
